The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which worked with the European Union and non-EU states in the region to formulate Sunday’s plan stressed the need for immediate action to save lives, though questions remain over how fast resources will be available and how squabbling neighboring governments will start to cooperate.
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In return, he promised extra border police for Greece and Slovenia, and 100,000 new places at reception centres along the West Balkans route.
Following the meeting, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a press conference that 50,000 places would be created in Greece and another 50,000 in the Balkan countries.
This is amid threats from three frontline states that they would close their borders.
Many Balkan countries say they’re being overwhelmed after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in September there could be no limit on asylum for those who meet the conditions.
Half of the reception centers will be in Greece, with the other 50,000 scattered through Macedonia, Serbia and other Balkan countries. “This is a building block, but we need to take many further steps”.
“We should go down south and defend the borders of Greece if they are not able to do that”, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who claimed he was only attending the meeting as an “observer” because Hungary is no longer on the migrant route since it tightened borders.
“If we don’t find a solution today, if we don’t do everything we can today, then it is the end of the European Union as such”, Slovenia’s Prime Minister Miro Cerar said in Brussels on Sunday. It is “unacceptable that in 2015 people are left fend for themselves, sleeping in fields and crossing rivers with water up to their chests in freezing temperatures”, he stressed.
Slovenia, which has a population of two million, has seen more than 60,000 refugees arrive in a matter of days.
To scale up the Poseidon Sea joint operation in Greece, in particular the EU’s border agency Frontex’s presence in the Aegean Sea, and strengthen significantly Frontex support to Greece in registering and fingerprinting activities.
A draft plan that they were to discuss has already drawn criticism for its proposal that countries stop allowing asylum-seekers to pass across their borders without consulting with their neighbors.
Migrants turned to Croatia after Hungary erected a barbed-wire fence along its border with Serbia.
It is not yet clear how these places will be set up.
The Commission has now earmarked nearly 10 billion euros ($11 billion) for spending on migration policy this year and next, he noted.
The surge of migrants across the Balkans is continuing unabated and Croatia’s police said yesterday morning more than 13,000 migrants arrived from Serbia in the past 24 hours.
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Turkey, the starting point for most of the migrants, was absent from the meeting but was on leaders’ minds, with officials viewing its help as crucial in stemming the influx to Europe.
